Can anyone calulate the floatation i have?

Not sure how to do this. It is closed cell spray insulation foam. I bet all the floam showed in the picture is less than a pound. Maybe two pounds at max. It is also hard as a rock, you can spray 2 inches into the top of a shoe box and you cannot break it over your knee. Anyways that gives you a sense of the foam.

Floor covers my whole 14 ft boat. Back few feet is 4 ft wide exactly then slowly goes up from there. The middle is 4 inches of foam tall front to back and in the back probably 3 ft across before it tapers. From middle to front it is 4 inches thick for probably 2 ft or better before it tapers. Even at the edges of the foam its still about 2 inches deep. There are some 2x4 supports in all that but doesnt take out too much.

Anyone have a ballpark on how many lbs of floatation that creates? Just curious. I know its much better than before but want to know a rough ballpark.

Thanks if advance for the help!

Here is my floor. In the very back it doesnt look like 4 inches but thats because the carpet is already pulled up and hiding it. It is as high pr higher in most places than the 2x4 standing upright down the middle and far higher than the 2x4s laying on their sides along the edges

That's about 700 lbs. of floatation. I can show you the math if you like.

That's some pretty cool stuff to work with and I like your design... but how do you plan to attach the deck to the boat? It's going to have to be a pretty stout installation or your deck will pull away from your boat and be an "escape raft".

Edited to say:

As per your statement in another thread:

suggestions should be given on how to properly do it and how the foam can be added back to make it safe again.

Click to expand...

I can suggest a much more secure build for your floatation if you're interested in knowing.

Its connected to the boat by 4- 1 1/2 x 1/8th inch thick pieces of angle aluminum that also support the sides to the floor. The hull and wood would rip in half out of the boat before it would come out with those things.

700lbs thats awesome. I take your word for it thats correct, thank you!

Here is a few different pictures of how the floor is connected to the boat as it was being done

Seriously, have you tested your deck to see if your angles will hold? During the time of an emergency would not be the time to find out you needed more reinforcement.

Test my deck? I took it out in some darn choppy water and ran it at over 28 mph and there is zero flex in the angles or the hull. In fact im sure less than there was before since each support is independent from each other (so when one side is pushed in or pulled out it doesnt movethe opposite side). I did sharp turns and both into the wind and with it as well as stopped and jumped up and down, rocked the boat as hard as i could etc.... The only way i could see to further test it is to run it wide open into a rock or something.

Also with my ratchet strap tying the boat down towing it, in the mirrors there is no hull flex.

If you take the sides of the boat while its trailered and bend them in and out as hard as you can, you cannot get anything to move, at all. With each support bolted (not riveted) on the top twice, and 3 times to the floor for each support, x4 in the boat. the supports or the floor are not going anywhere. Honestly and literally the boat would have to be ripped in half for the floor to come out. I dont know any other way it could be in more secure. I know its in a heck of a lot more secure than it was in the benches, and a lot more then a lot of mods on here.

If i wasnt 110% sure the boat has not only more foam but more solid than it was before, i would have added more of both foam and support. Safety and rigidity are very important to me, this boat has to last me a long time.

Today i am taking it out with a second person to test it further, but based on it so far, it is as sturdy as it can be. Another positive is this F-7 is a heck of a lot sturdier of a boat then most 14 footers to begin with.

Try taking a 12-14 inch piece of 1 1/2x 1 1/2x 1/8 inch thick angle aluminum and try to bend it. You would need the jaws of life to do it.

jigngrub said:

That's about 700 lbs. of floatation. I can show you the math if you like.

That's some pretty cool stuff to work with and I like your design... but how do you plan to attach the deck to the boat? It's going to have to be a pretty stout installation or your deck will pull away from your boat and be an "escape raft".

Edited to say:

As per your statement in another thread:

suggestions should be given on how to properly do it and how the foam can be added back to make it safe again.

Click to expand...

I can suggest a much more secure build for your floatation if you're interested in knowing.

Click to expand...

id be interested in hearing your idea if you wanna pm me or post it...thanks.

Dman23 said:

Try taking a 12-14 inch piece of 1 1/2x 1 1/2x 1/8 inch thick angle aluminum and try to bend it. You would need the jaws of life to do it.

Click to expand...

I was talking about a floatation test.

Take your boat to the launch ramp on a slow day and launch it without the drain plug in. Remove the back tie down straps, but leave the winch strap hooked to the bow eye. Let the boat fill with water and see how your deck acts, check to see if the front or rear of the deck wants to lift out from the boat. If things look like they're going to go wrong you can pull the boat out of the water before anything bad happens. You'll also get to see just how much water your boat takes on with that much foam in it, I personally don't think it'll be that much.

I do think you need to secure your deck from lateral movement, mainly forward to rear. Mounting another piece of angle to the transom horizontally on top of the decking will keep your deck from lifting out of the rear of the boat. Your braces are good for straight up and down pressure but don't offer lateral support.

Im sure the floatation test is a good idea to some extent, but its just not something i will do. I dont want to water log the whole boat that i just spent so much time making. Yes everything is built to handle water to some extent but in the event my boat went fully under water, at that point i would be planning to redo stuff.

I wouldnt do it if i bought a brand new boat, i wouldnt do it if i bought a used boat unless i was leak testing. I know how much foam i took out of the boat and i put much, much more back in, so thats good enough for me.

As far as more supports im telling you the only way it is coming out is if the boat rips in half. It would have to lift several inches to get each rip cutout over those, or over the transom, which would mean all 4 of those angle supports would have to fail. In order for those to fail the boat would have to be ripped in half. There is several rib slotsholding it for back and forth then it is right to the back and front. There is just no way it is coming out, and in the event my boat does rip in half, i thin at that point any boat is done for.

Maybe if you saw it in person you could see what i mean by there is no way that floor is coming out. And if you saw the factory foam and saw the amount of foam i have now, without purposely sinking my boat, i am more than assured i am better off now than having 5 inches of foam in 3 small benches.